


Image of an Angel

by mountain_born



Series: The Marvelous Tale of an Agent, an Archer, and an Assassin [19]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Doctor Who/Avengers Crossover Fusion, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-11 11:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2067201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mountain_born/pseuds/mountain_born
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An assignment to track down an 0-8-4 leads to a mission halfway across the galaxy to assist a crashed ship.  From there it only gets more complicated for Strike Team Delta and the Doctor and his companions.  There's a Maze of the Dead to navigate, a face from River's past/future, and a deadly threat lurking in the corridors of the <i>Byzantium.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First and foremost, a big glittery, neon-lit "Thank You" to my beta, **like-a-raven**! There were a lot of moving pieces to juggle in this one; thank you for keeping me on track.
> 
> While most of you will recognize the bones of the Doctor Who episodes _Time of the Angels_ and _Flesh and Stone_ , they have been heavily AU-ified for the _Marvelous Tale_ universe.
> 
> There will be four chapters plus a coda. New chapters will go up on Saturdays and Tuesdays.
> 
> It's good to be back. Happy reading!

_April 2010_  
 _Somewhere in Wales_

“So. This is Wales,” Clint said. 

He paused on the crest of the hill, tipping his head back to look at the sky overhead. Clint grimaced at the curdled grey clouds and promptly got hit in the face by an extra heavy gust of rain. 

Apparently Wales spit when provoked. Good to know.

“This is pretty par for the course,” River said, catching up with him on the trail. “ _If you can see_ Y Mwmbwls _it’s going to rain. If you can’t, it’s raining._ ” Some wet tendrils of hair had worked loose from her braid and water dripped steadily off the end of her nose. “On the plus side, I doubt anyone else is going to be out hiking in this today.”

That was probably true. A few folks in the local village had looked at them like they were crazy when they’d set out earlier this morning.

Coulson joined them on the top of the hill. “How close are we?” he asked River.

River scanned the landscape briefly, closed her eyes for a moment, then pointed out a hill on the opposite side of the field. “The coordinates from the satellite should put us just beyond that.”

“Okay.” Coulson adjusted his backpack. “Let’s push on. Fury wants this thing contained yesterday.”

“Doesn’t he always?” Clint asked.

Strike Team Delta had been en route home from a mission in Austria when the call had come in. An object of unknown origin had been picked up by a SHIELD satellite. It had touched down in the Welsh countryside. They’d immediately been diverted to contain it with instructions to only call in back-up from Brighton if absolutely necessary. 

SHIELD liked 0-8-4’s to be handled as quietly as possible.

They tramped across the field, thick mats of wet grass squishing under their boots. To any casual observer they’d just look like an ordinary (albeit not terribly bright) group of tourists out for a cross-country jaunt.

“You don’t look happy,” Clint said to Coulson as started up the side of the hill.

“I just wish we had some idea of what we’re going to be dealing with,” Coulson said. “The report wasn’t exactly lengthy.”

“That’s the price of being the best, Phil.”

Coulson snorted. “Yep. Serves us right. Can you see anything, River?” he called.

River had moved out ahead of them and was already at the top of the hill, looking out over whatever was on the other side. She didn’t turn to look back at Clint and Coulson, but raised one hand in a _hold for a second_ gesture. Then, as Clint watched, she raised her hand higher and waved.

“Shit,” Coulson muttered. “Don’t tell me we already have curious civilians on site.”

They double-timed it the rest of the way up the hillside where River met them wearing a wry smile.

“Short straw gets to call this in to Fury,” she said.

In the field below they could see a blue police box and a trio of people holding brightly colored umbrellas. The one in the middle was waving back and a familiar voice drifted up to them.

“Hello, SHIELD!”

“Well,” Clint said, waving back at the Doctor, Amy, and Rory, “at least maybe we can get out of the damn rain.”

Some days this job was all about the silver linings.

*****

Rory was the first to spot their visitors.

“Uh, guys?” he said, squinting at the figure on the top of the hill. “I think we have company.”

The Doctor didn’t bother to look up from what he was doing. He was crouched down, umbrella in one hand, sonic screwdriver in the other, scanning the object that had gone screeching past them in the Time Vortex. 

“Yes? And?” he said.

Amy reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a pair of field glasses. She raised them to her eyes. Rory saw her frown. 

“What is it?” he asked.

“I think it’s. . .yes, it is.” Amy pocketed the glasses and waved to the figure on the hill. “It’s River. Yep, and there are the boys.”

Rory looked down at the Doctor. “So. SHIELD’s here. Just in case you were interested.”

“Oh, lovely. Nice to know they’re on the ball.” The Doctor straightened back up again and waved. “Hello, SHIELD!” he called. 

They watched the three agents pick their way down the wet hillside. They were dressed in mucking-about clothes and carrying knapsacks, but Rory doubted that they had just decided to stop off in Wales for a spot of backpacking.

“Hello!” Coulson called back as they approached. 

“Agents! Fancy meeting you here,” the Doctor said. “You managed to beat UNIT _and_ Torchwood. Oh, that’s rather embarrassing for them.”

“And you look like you swam here,” Amy said, extending her umbrella a little so that River could get under it with her. 

Amy and River had become something like friends ever since the Doctor had his companions had started to regularly pop in on the SHIELD agents. Rory knew that Amy liked having another girl on the TARDIS on occasion and appreciated the fact that River was no shrinking violet. Rory wasn’t sure if he was ready to call River a _friend_ himself. He liked her, just as he liked Clint and Coulson. What did you call someone you liked reasonably well who was also rather shadowy and clearly a bit dangerous?

_Doctor_ was already taken.

“Doctor. Amy. Rory,” Coulson said. “We weren’t expecting to see you here, but I can’t exactly say I’m surprised.”

“So, this is what’s causing all the hoopla, huh?” Clint said, squatting down to take a closer look at their mystery object. The black cube was half-embedded in the spongy ground. “It _looks_ harmless. Not that that means anything.”

“It is harmless,” the Doctor said. He bent down and pried the cube out of the dirt with his bare hands. Rory saw Coulson restrain himself from reaching out to stop him. SHIELD probably worried about things like radiation and contamination and unexpected explosions. The Doctor tended to display caution by refraining from putting strange things in his mouth.

The Doctor tossed the cube lightly in the air. Rory gave Coulson credit for not cringing.

“This is a home box from a Class Z4 starliner,” the Doctor said. “It’s like an airplane flight recorder. It somehow fell through a rift in Time and Space. It flashed right by us in the Vortex. We followed it here.”

“Does that happen a lot?” Coulson asked. “Things falling through rifts?”

“More than you might think. How else do you explain the Loch Ness monster?” The Doctor scanned the cube again with the sonic screwdriver. “It’s transmitting a message. The box, not the Loch Ness monster.”

“What kind of message?” Agent Coulson asked.

“Let’s find out.”

*****

Three sopping wet knapsacks and coats lay in a heap inside the door of the TARDIS. Up on the control platform, six people crowded around a speaker, listening to a ship crash.

This sort of thing was always hard to listen to, River thought, even separated by thousands of years and millions of miles. Many things changed throughout time, but the sound of people rapidly approaching their own deaths did not.

“When is this happening?” Coulson asked. “Is there any way of knowing?”

“There is.” The Doctor was already typing away at a console that resembled nothing so much as an antique typewriter. His eyes were on a view screen. “The recording is time-stamped. The ship went down in the year. . .well, from where you’re situated, it’s the 52nd Century. And I think. . .” 

The Doctor raced around to the other side of the control console. River could see brown tweed and gangly limbs flapping on the other side of the central column. “Yes!” he called round to the others. “We have coordinates from the point at which the box was ejected. Which, if they’re following the usual procedure, would be just before they got caught in the planet’s atmosphere.”

“Are we going?” Rory asked as the Doctor started twirling dials and punching buttons, setting their course.

“Class Z4 starliners are massive and well built,” the Doctor said. “Assuming they didn’t completely break apart on entry there could well be survivors. And we have the black box. That means we have a responsibility to offer aid. Article 82 of the Shadow Proclamation.”

“So what do we do when we get there?” Clint asked. “I don’t know about you, but a crashed space ship is kind of outside our area of expertise.”

“We do whatever we can,” the Doctor said. “There are six of us. I’m sure we can manage something.” The Time Lord pulled a lever and the TARDIS’s engines whirred and groaned as she launched into the Vortex.

*****

_The Year 5138_  
 _Alfava Metraxis_

“I’m no expert on space ships, but I’m not liking our odds of finding survivors,” Coulson said, looking up at the scene of the crash.

The TARDIS had landed on a rocky, windy strip of seashore on a planet where a binary sun and three large moons hung suspended in a pinkish sky. They were at the base of a cliff, staring up at a massive smoking metal hull that rose out of a ruined stone building. Coulson wondered if the pilot had been trying to aim for the ocean. Not that he was sure what good that would have done.

“Do you suppose anyone was in there?” Amy asked.

The Doctor shook his head. “This is Alfava Metraxis, home to the Aplans. Well, former home. We’re in the 52nd Century, which means they died out quite some time ago. The planet’s been abandoned for centuries.” 

“Died out from what?” Clint asked.

“No one knows for certain,” the Doctor said. He glared when Clint made a disbelieving noise. “It’s a big universe, and not even I know everything. I know a lot, granted. More than you for certain. But not everything.”

The Doctor shielded his eyes from the glare of the two suns overhead and looked back at the downed ship and wreck of a building. 

“Unless my eyes deceive me, we’re looking at what’s left of the Temple of Augury. This was where the Aplan oracles would congregate. Think of Delphi on Earth. Minute fissures in the fabric of reality would allow highly trained prophets to glimpse the hidden truths of the Universe and interpret them for the masses. Well, in so far as such truth can be interpreted, which isn’t much.”

“You’re not a believer in prophecy, Doctor?” River asked.

“I’m a time traveler. Prophecies are entertaining, but they’re about as reliable as taxi service on Lemuria Prime.”

“Fascinating. So, what do we do now?” Rory asked. 

Coulson saw the Doctor open his mouth, but they never did get to hear what Step 2 of this operation was supposed to be. One moment they were alone on an apparently deserted beach. The next, they were surrounded and neatly trapped in a kill zone.

*****

Cleric Elizabeth Stuart didn’t know what to think of the trespassers.

Father Octavian had been very clear that no one but their unit of Marines was to go near the downed starliner and its valuable, volatile cargo. The directive had seemed unnecessary at the time. No one but the Church High Command even knew they were there. Word of the _Byzantium’s_ crash was being carefully controlled, and in this thinly-populated quadrant there weren’t many people to respond to a distress signal.

It had been rather a shock when the proximity alarms had gone off, alerting them to intruders on the beach. Elizabeth had felt a split-second of pride that she had been the first to grab her gun and helmet and sprint for the transport platform. She was the greenest Marine in the unit, just two months out of training, but she was determined to make Octavian proud.

They had materialized in a ring around the intruders. Elizabeth had imagined that if anyone did try to approach the _Byzantium_ it would be salvagers or possibly rival military forces. The six people on the beach didn’t really seem to fit either category. They didn’t appear to have a proper ship as salvagers would. There wasn’t even a drop ship or a shuttlecraft in sight, just an odd blue box. And they certainly didn’t look like any military unit she was familiar with.

_Three of them are soldiers, though, and no mistake,_ Elizabeth thought.

Those three were now holding weapons on the clerics. They were outmatched for firepower; the older man and the woman only had a pistol apiece, while the young man, absurdly, had a bow and arrow. They had crowded the other three people back, forming a defensive shield around them.

For a few tense seconds there was a great deal of shouting from both sides as Cleric Liam and the older man repeatedly ordered each other to lower weapons and stand down. 

“This is your last warning!” Cleric Liam bellowed. “Surrender or we will open fire.”

Elizabeth was really starting to think things were going to come to violence when one of the other intruders, a thin man wearing a brown jacket and bow tie, pushed past his protective compatriots, planting himself between the two armed sides.

“No! No, no, no!” he shouted. “No one is shooting anyone! Is that clear?”

“Doctor, get back!” The older man looked like he was ready to drag his companion back to safety by the scruff of his neck.

Things calmed down when Father Octavian arrived on the scene to take charge, though the one called _Doctor,_ in Elizabeth’s private opinion, could stand a few lessons in diplomacy.

“I’m Father Octavian, Bishop Second Class of the Anglican Marines, and this is a restricted area,” Octavian told the trespassers. “We’re conducting a rescue operation. Interfere and you’ll be taken into custody.”

“Since when does the Church send an entire armed regiment of Marines to assist a downed ship? That’s a job for a medical unit,” the quarrelsome doctor said. He eyed Father Octavian suspiciously. “Why are you really here? What’s on that ship that you’re after?”

_Smart. Or just a bloody good guesser,_ Elizabeth thought.

Father Octavian was too good a soldier to let the man goad him into a reaction, but Elizabeth had known Octavian for years. He and her father were practically brothers. She could tell that Octavain was not well pleased by this doctor’s impertinence or his intuition. He and his companions would probably have wound up in cells if it hadn’t been for the woman.

She was one of the three soldiers, and had clearly had some training in negotiation. She holstered her weapon and approached Octavian with half-raised hands and a respectful tone. 

“Father, may I speak with you?” she said. “There seems to be a misunderstanding. My name is River Song. My friends and I are with the Order of Samaritans. We’ve been sent to help you.”

*****

Order of Samaritans. That was a new one for the Doctor. Dropping the name had definitely had a positive effect on their circumstances, though, he couldn’t deny it. The Marines, Father Octavian included, had all but bent knee once they’d been convinced that River was telling the truth.

River knew how to talk to these people. She knew how to talk to them in top secret code words that only this mysterious order used. _Shibboleth._ She’d been holding her breath when she’d said it, but it had worked.

“All right, one hundred words or less,” the Doctor said as soon as they had a chance to huddle up out of earshot of the Marines. “Who exactly are we passing ourselves off as?”

You never knew. It might be important at some point.

“The Samaritans are an elite order that work in cooperation with the Church,” River said to the assembled group. “They’re freelance, outside the chain of command. The Church calls them in under special circumstances where they feel extra help is needed. Basically, it means that Octavian and his people will defer to us and not ask questions. Honestly,” River added, looking at the Doctor, “I’m kind of surprised that they never actually tried to sign you up.”

Amy, Rory, Clint, and Coulson looked from River to the Doctor.

“Yes, well, I travel a lot and don’t like it when people call me _sir._ ” The Doctor raised his eyebrows at River. “I’d ask how you know this, but I’m sure I’d get an annoyingly vague answer, wouldn’t I?”

River Song just smiled in that particular way of hers, one corner of her mouth pulling up in a knowing gesture.

“Just trust me, Doctor.”

“Not likely, Agent Song,” the Doctor replied amiably. “But I do thank you for getting us in on the action without bloodshed. Octavian said his camp is on the other side of the headland. Let’s go see what they’ve found.”

*****

“Nice save back there,” Clint said quietly as they picked their way along the rocky beach.

River glanced up at him with a little smile.

“That’s one of the nice things about being raised by a religious faction,” she replied. “You never really forget the lingo.”

She was taking this well, Clint thought. As soon as Father Octavian had introduced himself, and Clint had heard the words “Anglican Marines,” he had had an _Oh, shit_ moment. The Anglican Marines, at least an offshoot branch of them, had been (would be) the ones who had stolen (would steal) River as an infant. They had raised her to be a pawn of the Silence and the Academy of the Question, setting her on a course that was meant to end in a death match between her and the Doctor with the fate of the universe at stake. 

“You don’t forget the codes either, apparently.” Clint glanced up ahead where Father Octavian was leading the way to the camp. “Out of curiosity, what would have happened if that hadn’t worked?”

“Let’s just be glad that didn’t happen,” River said.

“Why? What would they have done to us?”

One corner of River’s mouth turned up. “I’m more worried about what the Doctor would have done to them.”

“Right.”

They had been running with the Doctor, on and off, for a year now. Clint still couldn’t decide if the Time Lord was one of the nicest guys in the universe, the most ridiculous man ever to draw breath, or just the scariest motherfucker he’d ever associated with.

The thing was, the Doctor was all three.

In a situation like this, Clint was pretty glad to have that in the arsenal.

*****

“I can hardly believe it. _Samaritans._ Here.”

Elizabeth stole one more quick look over her shoulder at their new comrades-in-arms. She managed to stop just short of grinning up at Father Octavian. Sometimes it was difficult to remember that he was her commanding officer now, and not just a regular guest at her family’s dinner table.

She schooled her expression into something more professional.

“Have you ever had occasion to work with Samaritans before, sir?”

Elizabeth didn’t miss the amused quirk of Octavian’s eyebrow.

“I have on one other occasion,” he said. “Their assistance was invaluable. We’re blessed to have them here, given what we’re set to face.”

Elizabeth nodded. A shiver of dread attempted to take up residence in her stomach, but she calmly caught it and set it aside. They were on a mission. There was no time for uncertainty.

*****

Octavian’s regiment of Marines had set up camp on the opposite side of the narrow arm of land the Temple of Augury had been built upon. Nestled against the base of the cliff, the camp was a cluster of pods and shuttlecraft.

The Doctor and his companions had been given free run of the place. Passing yourself off as Samaritans seemed to be a good way to get people to give you keys to the city, Amy thought. Or, at the very least, food, tea, and dry clothes for the SHIELD agents.

“You know, I have to say,” Amy said, “brown camo doesn’t do most people any favors, but you make it look good.”

River grinned, catching Amy’s eye in the mirror as she finished re-braiding her hair. “Thanks. It’s all in the attitude,” she said, tucking up her braid and pinning it in place. “Besides, I’m dry. That’s all I care about at the moment.”

“I would have offered you something of mine,” Amy said. They hopped out of the pod they’d been directed to so that River could change clothes. “Only anything of mine would have been about two miles too long on you.” 

“That’s okay,” River said. “I spend half my life in tactical gear. Fatigues are good.”

“Yeah, I just scoped out the girl clerics and found the one closest to your size,” Amy replied. “Oh, hey, that’s actually her.” She pointed out the soldier in question, a blonde young woman tinkering with a generator. “Hey! Elizabeth!”

*****

The young woman looked up when Amy called to her and River froze for a moment.

It couldn’t be. The universe simply wasn’t that ridiculous.

Apparently, the universe begged to differ. It had been a very long time since River had set eyes on her, but she wasn’t likely to forget the woman who had raised her.

Elizabeth MacDonald. Only she wasn’t Elizabeth MacDonald yet. She was too young. Cleric Elizabeth couldn’t have been more than eighteen and looked younger, her petite form and dainty features rather at odds with her combat gear. Uncle Robert had used to say that he’d made the mistake of thinking her delicate the first time she’d invited him to a sparring match.

“She soon knocked that notion out of me, quite literally,” he had always added, laughing.

Amy beckoned Cleric Elizabeth over and River smoothed her expression into something on the friendly end of neutral. 

“Hello,” Elizabeth said a little breathlessly, shaking River’s hand. “Cleric Elizabeth Stuart, third-class. This is such an honor. I never thought I’d be working with Samaritans. Of course, I’m really quite new. This is my first field assignment.” She seemed to catch herself. “And I promise I don’t usually ramble this much.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” River said, trying not to stare.

Amy Pond was (would be) River’s mother, but that was a matter of biology. River had only been a month old when the Academy had taken her and given her over to the MacDonalds. Elizabeth was the one River remembered cuddling her in her lap, brushing her hair, and sending her off to school. Elizabeth had been the one to teach her how to walk as silently as a ghost, wield a knife with deadly accuracy, and send an opponent twice her size tumbling ass over teakettle.

Had been the one. Would be the one.

“Thank you for the uniform,” River added, afraid that she might have let the silence drag on a little too long.

“My pleasure,” Elizabeth said. “Are you ready to proceed to the command post? I told Father Octavian I’d bring you over. The Doctor and Rory are already there.”

“Sure,” Amy said.

“Actually, I’ll meet you over there?” River said. “I should find Clint and Phil and hurry them along.”

She needed to let them know that yet another wrinkle had formed in this little adventure they were on.

*****

“We’ve been able to tap into the security feed on the _Byzantium,_ ” Father Octavian told the Doctor. “It’s been slow going, but it’s given us eyes on the inside.”

The Doctor and Rory were on board Octavian’s drop ship, which was parked at the center of the camp. The rest of their party had yet to join them, but Octavian had been willing to start briefing them on the situation. The Doctor scanned the images on the array of view screens. They all showed a depressing lack of life.

“Any survivors?” Rory asked. He was standing behind the Doctor’s shoulder, arms folded. 

“The warp engines experienced a phase shift,” Father Octavian replied. “That sort of thing doesn’t leave survivors.”

“So, then, you’re not really here for a rescue,” Rory said. 

The Doctor had been hunched slightly over the consoles. He straightened up now.

“Phase shifts don’t happen by accident, especially on ships as expensive as the _Byzantium,_ ” he said. “That means sabotage. But you wouldn’t be here to arrest a saboteur because if he were aboard then he would have been vaporized along with everyone else. So, Bishop, why don’t you tell us what you’re looking for?”

Octavian gave him a canny look. He didn’t question why he was being asked this by his high-level back up, though. The Doctor thought he could get used to this _Samaritan_ business.

“We know what sabotaged the ship,” Octavian said, “and we are tasked with capturing and containing it. We’re searching the feeds for it, now.”

Octavian smiled at the Doctor. “And we’re quite fortunate that we have Samaritans on hand to help us. Because it’s apt to be very dangerous indeed.”


	2. Chapter 2

Three thousand years, Clint thought. Three thousand years and God knew how many light years away from home, and desert fatigues hadn’t changed one fucking bit.

“I never thought I’d be wearing this again,” he said, sitting down to lace up his boots.

“You and me both,” Coulson said, doing up the buttons of his shirt.

Clint and Coulson had both been US Army before they’d been SHIELD. Neither one of them had ever been anxious to revisit those days.

The knock on the pod door echoed hollowly through the metal structure. “Is everyone decent in there?” River’s muffled voice asked.

Clint stood up and nudged the door open. “As decent as we ever get. Come on in,” he said, giving River an unnecessary hand up into the pod.

“Thanks,” River said. She had a certain look on her face. It was a look that Clint knew meant, _so, shit is starting to slide sideways._

“Oh, Jesus. Now what? The Doc didn’t get himself shot, did he?” he asked.

“Not yet. At least not that I’m aware of,” River said. “But we do have a complication.”

*****

“That is most definitely a complication,” the Doctor said, staring at the image on the security feed.

So this was what Octavian was after. The Doctor had half a mind to box the man’s ears for sheer stupidity.

“I don’t get it.” Rory looked from Octavian to the Doctor. “It’s a statue.”

“It is one of the most dangerous creatures in the universe,” the Doctor said.

“As I said, we’re indeed very fortunate to have you,” Octavian said.

Amy had quietly entered the pod and moved to stand with Rory, frowning at the image on the screen. The Doctor saw her glance at Rory, who just shrugged.

“How did you even know it was on board?” the Doctor asked.

“It’s cargo. It was on the shipping manifest.”

“What exactly do you think you’re going to do with it?” the Doctor asked. That was the part he really couldn’t fathom. “You should just leave it here. This planet is abandoned. Its presence won’t put anyone in danger. Walk away.”

“The Church wants to study it. Use it,” Octavian said. “With the right harness, it could be a formidable weapon.”

“Are you insane?” the Doctor asked, voice rising. “You don’t put a _harness_ on a Weeping Angel.”

“Those are our orders, Doctor,” Octavian said. “With respect, sir, you may be a Samaritan, but this is my command. This is our mission. We’re taking the Angel, and we’ll do it with our without you.”

*****

River, Clint, and Coulson had found an out-of-the-way corner among the pods and shuttles where they could watch Cleric Elizabeth from a distance. She had gone back to working on the generator.

“This is before the Silence,” River told Clint and Coulson. “This is probably about a decade before the Kovarian Faction officially splits off from the Church.”

That was her best guess, at any rate. River’s math might be off by a few years, but the point remained that at this particular time Elizabeth Stuart was simply an Anglican Marine, not one of Madame Kovarian’s followers. Things could have been a lot worse on the complications front.

River saw Clint’s fingers twitched like he wanted to have them wrapped around a bowstring. It was no secret that Clint, in an abstract way, hated her foster parents. The Academy as a collective had stolen her as an infant in order to fashion her into a weapon, but Robert and Elizabeth had been the ones chosen by the Academy to raise her, to act as her mother and father. River knew that, in Clint’s eyes, that made them worse than the rest of the Academy and the Silence put together.

Clint didn’t often voice his thoughts on the issue aloud to her, which River was grateful for. After everything, there was still a part of her that loved Robert and Elizabeth and Clint knew that. He tried not to make her complicated feelings about them even knottier than they already were.

River was willing to bet that Coulson got an earful on the subject from time to time, though. 

“So are we in a time before the prophecy comes into play?” Coulson asked.  
“I have absolutely no idea,” River replied. “My knowledge of the Church before the schism is pretty rudimentary, I’m afraid.”  


_On the fields of Trenzalore at the fall of the eleventh._ It all came down to that, didn’t it? At least as far as the Academy claimed. 

River had learned the words of the prophecy by heart before she’d turned five years old. She’d been schooled in its meaning the way other children were drilled on a Catechism lesson. That was back in the days before she’d decided that the prophecy was nothing but a string of catchy phrases that had been scribbled down during all-night _let’s find an excuse to kill the Doctor_ meetings.

“Hey, head’s up,” Clint said, his stance automatically dropping into something a little more casual. “Rory’s coming.”

*****

Something was definitely up with the SHIELD agents. Well, more so than usual.

Rory always hated approaching them when they clumped up in a bunch like that, clearly talking over secrets. You’d think they’d use code words and hand signals and some kind of super-spy telepathy. For all Rory knew, they did sometimes (well, except maybe that last). Other times, like now, they talked their stuff out like regular people. 

He was always careful not to sneak up on them. He could live without having his face broken. Besides, it just seemed impolite. So Rory approached the agents slowly until Clint looked up and spotted him. 

“Hi, Rory.”

“Hi,” Rory replied, picking up his pace a bit now that they knew he was there. “Am I interrupting something?”

He didn’t miss the way Clint, River, and Coulson moved a little apart from each other, making themselves look a bit less like a plotting session.

“No, not at all,” River said. “What’s going on?”

“The Doctor wants everyone over at the command post,” Rory replied, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

They needed to provide back-up for Amy if nothing else. She had stayed back there to keep the Doctor and Octavian from coming to pecking-order-establishing, sarcasm-laden blows.  


“He’s found something?” Clint asked.  


“Trouble. As usual,” Rory said wryly. Story of their very complicated lives. “They know what brought the ship down.”  


“What is it?” River asked.  


Rory looked over at River. River with her Samaritans and TARDIS-piloting skills and mysterious remarks. She was the reason that the Doctor kept coming back for the SHIELD agents, because he couldn’t figure her out.  


“You know,” Rory said to River, “the Doctor says that you know all sorts of things that you really shouldn’t know. What do you know about Weeping Angels?”

*****

“This is the mission objective,” Octavian said.

They were all on board Octavian’s shuttlecraft now, crowded around the main view screen. The feed showed the interior of a cargo hold, empty save for a single statue: a stone angel, its hands covering its face in a permanent lament.

Octavian was standing to one side of the screen, looking at his “mission objective” with what River thought was a slightly zealous gleam in his eye. The Doctor was standing on the other side of the screen, arms folded, leaning against the bulkhead. In contrast to Octavian, he looked as if he’d taken a bite of a rancid lemon.

“The Angel has been in a private art collection on New Athens for almost two hundred years,” Octavian said. He glanced at the Doctor. “Dormant.”

“There’s a difference between dormant and patient,” the Doctor said. “And if it’s going around crashing starliners, it is a long way from ‘dormant.’”

“You’re saying this thing is alive?” Coulson said. “The statue?”

“Right, I see we’re going to need a bit of remedial education.” The Doctor straightened up away from the bulkhead. “River? Would you perhaps like to field this?”

“Another pop quiz, Doctor?” River asked.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows at her. “If you like.”

This wasn’t the first time that she and the Doctor had engaged in this particular dance. River knew it was one of the ways in which he was still sizing her up.

River always watched her steps carefully during these dances, but this information was harmless enough.

“The Weeping Angels are said to be one of the oldest species in the universe, predating even the Time Lords,” she said. “No one knows where exactly they originated or how they began to spread. No one even truly knows what one looks like.”

River took a step closer to the view screen, lightly tapping the image of the Angel.

“Interesting fact about the Weeping Angels. In the sight of any living creature they turn into a stone statue. It’s an involuntary response, a biological defense mechanism taken to an insane level. They can’t even look directly at each other. That’s why they’re so often seen with their hands covering their eyes, like this one.”

“So, I’m thinking reproduction has to be a bitch,” Clint said.

“That would be high on the list of _no one has a clue how that happens,”_ River replied with a nod.

“Okay, but why are they so dangerous?” Amy asked. “A statue can’t kill you. I mean, unless someone drops one on you.”

“Because the moment you look away, it’s not a statue anymore,” River said. “A blink, that’s all it takes. That’s how fast they are. One blink and you’re dead.”

When River had been small and learning about the other races of the Universe, she’d had a particular horror of the Weeping Angels. Though, possibly, she’d been picking up on the mood of her teacher. Aunt Elizabeth had, in her usual quiet and controlled way, been terrified of them, though she’d never taught River anything beyond the schoolbook facts.

River would bet her SHIELD badge that Father Octavian’s “mission objective” had something to do with that.

“And your idea is to turn this thing into a weapon? Add it to your arsenal?” Rory asked.

“It is,” Octavian said.

“Sounds like playing with fire if you ask me,” Coulson said.

“Yes. It’s not even remotely like, say, attempting to harness the Tesseract,” the Doctor added dryly. River saw Coulson roll his eyes, but the Doctor was focused on Octavian. “Bishop, I am telling you, you do not want to do this. Alfava Metraxis is uninhabited. There’s nothing here that thing can hurt. Pull your people off this planet, put a warning buoy in orbit, and leave the Angel here to die.”

“Die? This is a Weeping Angel we’re discussing, Doctor,” Octavian said.

“Anything will starve to death given enough time. It might take thousands of years, and that’s exactly how long people should give this planet a very wide berth.”

Octavian was looking less and less impressed with his team of Samaritans. “We have our orders, Doctor. We will board the ship and take the Angel, and we’ll do it with or without you. You can either help or you can get back in your box and leave. Cleric Elizabeth,” he added. Elizabeth, who had been standing in the corner stood at attention. “Go see how they’re coming with the drill. I want us to be ready to move in four hours.”

*****

_Three and a half hours later. . ._

Rory was trying to decide if watching a stone statue on television was more or less boring than watching cement sit. He’d yet to reach a definitive conclusion.

“Do you suppose it knows we’re watching it?” Amy asked. “Like, if a Weeping Angel can’t move if people see it, does watching it through a camera count?”

“No idea.” Rory shifted a little, trying to get a bit more comfortable. He and Amy were taking a turn monitoring the Angel. For lack of any other seating, they had piled a bunch of supplies into the shape of a makeshift sofa and settled in. Amy was tucked up against his side, her feet curled under her and her head on his shoulder. It was just like they were watching a movie back in their flat in Leadworth. 

If it weren’t for the impending danger and mayhem that was sure to come, it would have been very pleasant.

“It’ll all be fine,” Amy said. 

Rory looked down at her quizzically, a little amused that she seemed to have hijacked his thoughts. Amy shifted her head, looking up so that she could meet his gaze.

“We have the Doctor. And a bunch of space marines. And,” Amy raised her hands in a set of air quotes, “’Strike Team Delta.’ We’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, but even the Doctor seems to think this is a suicide mission,” Rory pointed out. “And if the Doctor thinks something is a bad idea. . .”

Well, then, mere mortals should just go ahead and kiss life and limb good-bye.

“That’s why he has us,” Amy said. “We’ll keep him out of trouble. We always do.”

Someone cleared their throat softly, diverting their attention from the Angel.

“Hello,” Cleric Elizabeth said, waving from the doorway. “I’ve come to relieve you. I’ll take over watching for a bit.”

“Thanks,” Rory said as he and Amy eased themselves up from their seat. “Make yourself at home. I warn you though, the back support is abysmal.”

Elizabeth laughed.

“I’m good, thank you. I think your Doctor friend wanted to see you when you were done.”

Rory and Amy left Cleric Elizabeth to take up watch.

*****

Clint stepped down out of the Medical pod, grimacing as he rubbed his arm. Heavy-duty immunizations were always a bitch, and futuristic anti-radiation meds really packed a wallop. The medic, Cleric Timothy, had assured him that it was perfectly safe. They were still going to have to write this up and report it Dr. Levine when they got back to SHIELD.

She was going to have kittens. Vicious, mutant, man-eating zombie kittens.

From where Clint stood in Octavian’s camp, he could hear the high-powered drill still cutting its way into the cliff face. Clint didn’t know exactly how the transport beams worked, but apparently the radiation levels in the _Byzantium_ were too high to use them to get on board. Using the TARDIS to get inside was out, too. The Doctor flat out refused to put his ship in the path of a Weeping Angel. He claimed that the consequences could be catastrophic if the Angel were to gain access to it.

Octavian had shown them scans of the crash site. The _Byzantium_ had come down on the top of the old temple, driving down through the ground into a series of catacombs that honeycombed the cliff. That was going to be their way in. The Marines were tunneling their way into the base of the cliff and they were going to work their way up through something called the Maze of the Dead.

Because bad shit couldn’t possibly go down in something called “the Maze of the Dead.”

Still, that was the plan and even the Doctor had concurred that it seemed to be the best way. Small comfort, since the Doctor also clearly thought that capturing the Angel was seven shades of fucked up. Clint had a bad feeling about this mission, anyway, but they were stuck in a _house-that-Jack-built_ situation. 

Octavian and his Marines were going in. There was no dissuading them. So, the Doctor was going with them to try to make sure they got out alive. Amy was going because the Doctor was going. Rory was going because Amy was going. River was going to protect Rory and Amy (and, Clint suspected, young Cleric Elizabeth). Where River went, Clint and Coulson followed. 

Clint had been the last to report for his anti-rad shot while the others had gone to deal with mission prep. Now he set off through the camp to find his teammates, following his nose through the maze of pods and crates.

*****

Standing sentinel had never been one of Elizabeth’s favorite tasks. She was one who had always preferred to be in motion over being still. She liked obstacle courses, running, even marching. Staying in one place, keeping watch, was just boring.

Still, that was her job, so she did it dutifully.

Hands behind her back, she wandered closer to the main view screen until her nose was only a few inches away. Elizabeth studied the Angel. Such a beautiful thing, from its slender hands cupping its face to the graceful arch of its wings. It was hard to think that it could be dangerous. 

Elizabeth blinked.

The Angel was facing her head on. 

Elizabeth started. The Angel’s face was a horrible sight. Its blank stone eyes seemed to be fixed right on her, its mouth was opened in a snarl like an animal’s, and its hands were spread before it as if in welcome.

_Don’t move. Don’t blink. Don’t take your eyes off of it._

Elizabeth was young. She was raw. She was new. But one thing she had never been was cowardly. Elizabeth stared the Angel right in the eyes.

_It’s just an image,_ she told herself. Elizabeth opened her mouth to shout for the others. They needed to know that the Angel was moving.

She couldn’t make a sound. Elizabeth tried to shout three, four times. It was like her voice was no longer her own. That’s when she started to get truly frightened. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t move. The distant noises of the camp faded and silence pressed against her like a heavy weight. The entire universe seemed to shrink down to those stone eyes.

The silence was cracked by a voice.

_Elizabeth._ One word and it shook her down to her bones, echoing inside her head. The Angel was talking to her. It was as impossible as it was terrible.

_I see you,_ it said. _I can see so many things, like the prophets that once swarmed in this temple, peering through cracks in Time, into the future and the past. I see them through my eyes. I see them through your eyes. I see them through the eyes of the Universe._

She tried to close her eyes or look away, but the Angel wouldn’t let her.

_Elizabeth. Would you like to see what I see?_

*****

River heard Clint approaching. She couldn’t see him; she was flopped back on a stack of pallets with one arm resting across her eyes, but she knew those footsteps. They quickened in pace as they closed the distance.

“River?” A pair of hands rested in her knees.

River’s mouth curved as she lowered her arm, looking up at Clint. His face was wrinkled up in mild concern.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” River replied. She laced her fingers across her stomach. “I was just tallying up.”

“Tallying up?”

“Yeah. You know how things just hit you?” River sat up, folding her legs and resting her elbows on her knees. “Just to recap, we’re here with my biological parents, the woman who’s going to be my foster mother, the Anglican Marines, and the Doctor. And a Weeping Angel. And Phil.” 

River smiled at Clint, a little sheepishly. “I just needed a brief mental time out.”

The corners of Clint’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “Well, yeah. Most of it is small beans, but Phil just tips the whole thing straight into insanity.”

“What do I do?” Coulson asked, coming up to join them.

Before they had a chance to explain, the whine of the drill died and there were some shouts from the base of the cliff where the Marines were working.

“Sounds like they’re through,” River said. “We should go find the others.”

*****

Elizabeth had just finished loosening a handful of circuits in the relay box when Cleric Liam stuck his head into the drop ship. As acts of sabotage went, it was simple, effective, and highly unlikely to be detected.

The view screen was nothing but static.

“They’ve broken through into the catacombs. Octavian wants you to report.” Cleric Liam frowned at the view screen. “What happened?”

“No idea,” Elizabeth said, snapping the cover of the relay box back into place. “We lost the feed. It’s not the circuits. I just checked them and they’re all fine.”

“Better tell Octavian. He was counting on being able to keep watch on the inside.”

“I know,” Elizabeth said. “I’m going right now.”

She wanted to say more, but the Angel on her shoulder wouldn’t let her. Elizabeth left the ship and went to find her commanding officer.

*****

“We’ve lost sight of the Angel,” Father Octavian said to the assembled party. “That means that our mission has become all the more dangerous. The Angel can move faster than the eye can see, and now it could be anywhere. It could even have found a way off the ship by now.”

They were gathered around the hole that the Marines had drilled into the cliff face, their entrance into the catacombs. As Coulson glanced around at Octavian’s clerics, he saw a fair number of tense faces and uneasy shifting. He mentally worked on matching up the names he’d learned with faces. Pedro, Timothy, Grace. Marco, Lucy, Bridget. Liam, Anthony, Giles. Christian. Dominic.

Elizabeth. No unease coming off of her, Coulson noticed. She looked pale, but utterly resolute.

While Octavian verbally whipped some determination into his troops, Coulson leaned over to whisper to River.

“You said that Elizabeth told you about the Angels when you were a kid,” he said. “I don’t suppose she told you how this turned out?”

River shook her head. “No. Not that it would have made much difference if she’d had. Like the Doctor keeps saying, Time can be rewritten.”

“Right.” Great. “Do you think the Doctor has a plan if this goes south?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest.”


	3. Chapter 3

“A Maze of the Dead. You don’t see one of these every day,” the Doctor said. In spite of his clear displeasure with this entire situation, River thought that the Doctor seemed to appreciate the sight.

The assembled party was gathered at the head of the path that would lead them down into the maze. The huge chamber was illuminated by weak wavery light from the gravity globe the Doctor had kicked off into the abyss. It was enough for them to see their way, and to be able to make out hundreds and hundreds of dark silhouettes, the memorial statues of the Aplans.

“Nothing to be afraid of,” the Doctor said. “It’s just a giant labyrinth with dead people in the walls. And, as you can see, lots and lots of stone statues. If the Angel has made it all the way down here, we have an extremely dangerous creature with perfect camouflage, so keep your eyes peeled. That goes double for you, Hawkeye.”

The path led them downward and across a wide cavern before it began to climb, leading them up toward the _Byzantium._ The party moved carefully, shining torches off into the shadows and eyeing every crumbling statue with great suspicion.

Without really meaning to, River found herself walking alongside Cleric Elizabeth. They kept pace in silence for several minutes before River ventured to speak.

“How are you?” she asked.

To her eyes, Elizabeth looked faintly nauseated. It was unnerving. The Elizabeth that River remembered had rarely ever appeared anything less than resolute.

“I’m fine,” Elizabeth said. She was quiet for a beat or two before adding, “I suppose I’ve never been keen on being underground.”

“No, me neither,” River replied. “Limited exits, limited vision, distorted perception. It’s not one of my favorite environments.”

There had also been that incident on the Brighton SHIELD base, where a bomb and subsequent fire in a series of tunnels had nearly killed Clint and Coulson. That hadn’t made River any fonder of subterranean environments.

“Plus, just that feeling of being buried,” Elizabeth said. She trained her torch on a cluster of statues near the path. “Can you imagine? Being down here for hundreds and hundreds of years? What must that be like?”

“I don’t know, but I can’t imagine it would be good.”

*****

Elizabeth was relieved when River dropped back to walk with Agent Barton. The Samaritan was nice enough, but the Angel nestled in the back of her mind made carrying on a conversation difficult. There were too many voices to keep track of and it was difficult to work around the grip the Angel had on her voice.

It was too hard to have help walking right beside her and not be able to ask for it.

She couldn’t tell the others that they were walking right into a trap. Elizabeth watched as they passed by the worn and crumbling statues, none the wiser to what they were. She could feel the Angel’s satisfaction with their blindness. Even the Time Lord was fooled.

Elizabeth shuddered internally as she glanced up ahead to where the Doctor was walking with Father Octavian. She had thought the man rather comical looking when she’d first seen him on the beach. That was before the Angel had let her see. It had shown her what the Doctor was. It had shown her things he had done and things he had yet to do.

The Angel was terrifying, but it was a pale shadow next to the Doctor. He was a creature of pure destruction.

He was the one who would lead them all to their end.

*****

Something wasn’t right. Clint couldn’t put his finger on it, but something just wasn’t right. It was like that _It was quiet—TOO quiet_ feeling.

They were making steady progress up through the catacombs and so far there were no signs of trouble. They were still following the weak light of that gravity globe thing the Doctor had kicked up to the ceiling when they’d started out. Octavian was leaving small teams of clerics at each level, serving as a sort of human airlock. They were checking in regularly. No excitement. 

But Clint still couldn’t shake the conviction that something was off. Maybe it was just all the damn statues along their route that was putting him on edge. Vaguely human shapes in half-darkness tripped his danger meter.

At least the Doctor seemed to have relaxed a bit. Emphasis on _seemed._ Clint thought he knew the Doctor well enough by now to know that he was never really as unconcerned as he might look.

“The Aplans were amazing builders, you know,” he was saying to Amy and Rory. “Absolute genius. They really did prove that two heads are better than one.”

“They were good collaborators?” Clint heard Rory ask.

“No, I mean they had two heads. Like I said, very interesting race. Brilliant. Though when they were of two minds about a thing, they were _really_ of two minds about it.”

Clint tuned out again and ran another mental check of the group, making sure everyone was accounted for. Octavian, Elizabeth, and Cleric Liam were up front. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory were right behind them. River was walking alongside Clint, and Coulson was a little ways behind them walking with Clerics Giles, Anthony, and Lucy.

One Time Lord, six space marines, five crazy people, and about sixty-four thousand stone statues.

Clint drifted to a halt, training the beam of his flashlight on the indistinct face of the nearest statue.

No, something really wasn’t right.

Clint reached out and grabbed River’s arm, pulling her behind him.

“What?” she asked.

“The statues,” Clint said, hoping to God that he was being stupid and way off base. But he didn’t think he was. Clint raised his voice. “Doc?”

“Yes?” The Doctor halted up ahead, and the others with him. “What? What about the statues?”

“The Aplans had two heads,” Clint said.

Whatever else could be said about this motley crew, they weren’t _too_ slow on the uptake. It only took a few seconds for the significance of the statement to filter through the group.

“Oh, shit,” River whispered.

Hundreds of statues, and not a one of them had two heads.

Clint wondered what the Aplanese was for _completely and totally fucked._

*****

A single Weeping Angel would have been dangerous enough. One day, the Doctor thought, he was really going to have to start listening to his better judgment.

“All of them,” River said, looking back down the path that they had followed up through the catacombs. “The statues. They’re all Angels.”

An army of Angels, no doubt stuck here since they’d exhausted their food source centuries ago. And they were starting to stir to life.

“We’ve been walking right by them. Why haven’t they killed us?” Coulson asked as their party crowded together on the crumbling staircase leading up to the next level.

“They’re weak. Look at them,” the Doctor said. These Angels had indeed moved while their backs were turned, but at a microscopic fraction of the speed the race normally displayed. “But they won’t be for long. They’re feeding on an entire ship’s worth of leaking radiation. The _Byzantium_ didn’t come down here by accident. The Angel brought it down as food for its friends.”

Octavian was trying to raise the teams he’d left behind. Judging by the man’s growing agitation, no one was answering.

“There’s no one left to answer,” one of the Marines, a young woman, said.

She had lowered her weapon and was walking toward the Angels who had moved across the path, blocking their way back.

“Stay away from them!” the Doctor said. “You, there, blonde Marine person! They’re slow, not harmless. Come back here!”

The cleric (Elizabeth, that was her name) turned around. Something odd was going on here, the Doctor thought. It looked like a very, very scared person and a very, very sinister person were fighting for control of her facial expression.

Sinister was winning.

“Elizabeth?” Octavian said quietly.

“I’m afraid your Marines are dead, Bishop,” she said. “Apologies for the inconvenience. It was less trouble this way.”

“What’s wrong with her?” Rory asked.

The Doctor strode closer to Elizabeth, dodging Amy’s hand when she would have grabbed him by the collar.

“What are you?” he asked. The cleric was staring at him with a cold smile. Old, half-forgotten bits of lore bubbled to the surface of the Doctor’s brain. “You’re the Angel, aren’t you? The one from the ship. The video feed, it showed your image. An image is transcendental. It let you make the jump, didn’t it? At least a portion of your consciousness. You jumped inside her mind.”

“So, what? You’re saying she’s possessed?” Clint asked.

“How is a thing like that even possible?” If Octavian sounded indignant, the Doctor was sure it was to cover up fear. Military types. It was their way. “And if this is the Angel we’re talking to, where’s Elizabeth?”

“She’s still here, Bishop, and very afraid.” Angel-Elizabeth’s mouth curved in menacing mirth. “It’s amusing.”

The Doctor didn’t give Octavian a chance to respond.

“And you’ve killed all of the others. The real you, I mean. Stone-Angel you. You killed all of the clerics who were meant to watch our backs.”

“Snapped their necks,” Angel-Elizabeth confirmed with a nod. “Flesh gives so easily to stone.”

The Doctor grinned.

“Then there’s currently no Angel on the _Byzantium_ now.” He looked to the other Marines. “One of you, grab her and everyone follow me. Run!”

*****

“Now what?” Amy asked, staring upward in dismay.

They’d made it to the top of the catacombs, sprinting up the last two levels, without anyone dying. Cleric Elizabeth had been hustled along between Rory and Cleric Liam. The girl’s mind might be half gone to the Angel, but her feet still seemed to have some survival instincts going for them. From where Amy stood, she could see the nose of the _Byzantium._ She could even see an access hatch in the hull.

The only problem was that it was a good thirty feet above their heads, and the last time she’d checked none of them could fly.

She could see Clint sizing up the distance. Maybe the circus boy would have something up his sleeve.

“I have grappling hooks,” he offered. Amy assumed he was referring to his bag of tricks that masqueraded as a quiver. “It’s an easy shot. We can pull ourselves up.”

“I don’t think we’re going to have time,” Father Octavian said, shining his torch back the way they had come. Where the path and been clear a moment ago, three statues were now visible in the shadows. “The Angels are coming.”

“Right. You and you, watch them,” the Doctor said to Clerics Lucy and Anthony.

The Doctor himself was pacing a rapid and erratic circuit of their space, examining, calculating, plotting. Amy had a good idea of what he was thinking: no way up, no way out, no way back.

All of that might be a problem for anyone but the Doctor.

“You’re putting off the inevitable,” Angel-Elizabeth said. She was still standing between Rory and Cleric Liam, the two men holding her arms fast. She looked almost sorrowful.

That couldn’t be the Angel, Amy thought. That had to be the real Elizabeth peeking through. She was still in there somewhere.

“There’s no escape,” she added. “The Angels have trapped you.” 

“Yes. Trap.” The Doctor’s eyes were on the gravity globe still hovering overhead. “And you know what? This trap’s got a great big whopping mistake in it.”

Amy started to smile. _There it is._

Angel-Elizabeth’s head tilted inquisitively. “What is that?”

The Doctor ignored her.

“Listen close,” he said to the others. “I need you all to trust me. I need you to do exactly what I say and don’t ask questions. Leap of faith. All right?”

Maybe it was just that there was no better option, but everyone nodded readily enough.

“Good. Agent Song, I need your sidearm.”

River’s hesitation before she handed over her weapon was actually a half a second shorter than Amy expected.

“Thanks.” The Doctor efficiently released the safety. “Now, I’m about to do something incredibly stupid and dangerous. When I do, all of you _jump_ as high as you can. Got it?”

So. _Literal_ leap, then.

Angel-Elizabeth was frowning. “I’m sorry. You said there was a mistake.”

“Oh, great big. Huge mistake.” The Doctor raised the gun, pointing it overhead. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you? There’s one thing you never put in a trap.”

*****

“Christ, Doc. Warn us before you do something like that,” Clint said, craning his neck to stare up (down?) at the Angels in the catacombs.

All the same, Clint had to give the Doctor points for style. The Time Lord had taken out the gravity globe with a single shot. Clint had experienced a swooping sensation in his stomach like he’d flipped off a high bar, and now they were standing upside down on the nose of the _Byzantium,_ supported by its gravity field.

Clint was pretty sure he heard Cleric Giles choke down his dinner.

“I said the words _stupid_ and _dangerous,_ Hawkeye. Keep up,” the Doctor replied, using his sonic screwdriver to pop the seal on the hatch. “Now, everyone inside. We’re far from out of the woods.”

*****

They lost another two Marines, Anthony and Lucy, on their way into the ship. Rory thought that they were lucky not to lose more. The stranded Angels were restoring at a rapid rate.

But they’d made it. They were in what the Doctor said was a maintenance office. Father Octavian and Clerics Giles and Liam were working on sealing the door. The Doctor and Amy were examining the room’s control console. The SHIELD agents were checking the perimeter of the room for any other possible entrances. 

That left Rory with Elizabeth.

She had been cooperative enough when Rory had sat her in a chair, but she seemed to be utterly checked out and Rory really didn’t know what to do. _How to proceed when your patient has been possessed by the consciousness of an alien stone killing machine_ hadn’t been covered in his nursing program. Checking vitals was at least a place to start. She was conscious, but not responsive. Respiration seemed normal. Temperature felt elevated. Pulse was a bit rapid, but whose wasn’t at this point?

Rory flinched, startled, when River knelt down next to him.

“How’s she doing?” she asked.

“I can’t quite tell,” Rory said. “Physically, I don’t think she’s in danger, at least not yet. Mentally? Well, just look at her.”

Just at that moment, Elizabeth blinked. Rory saw a gleam of clarity return to her eyes just before she drew a long, shuddering breath.

“It’s all right. It’s all right,” River said, resting her hands on top of the girl’s. “You’re on the _Byzantium._ ”

“Yeah, you. . .something happened down in the catacombs,” Rory added. “What do you remember?”

For a second Rory expected Elizabeth to go to pieces, but it seemed she was made of sterner stuff. Her voice was a little shaky, but there was a thread of steel running through it that didn’t sound even close to breaking.

“All of it. Everything,” she said. “The Angel. . .I was watching it on the monitor and then all of a sudden it was inside my head. It was talking to me.”

“Controlling you,” the Doctor’s voice broke in. He had his hands braced on the console and was watching them. “It still is, isn’t it? It’s lengthened the leash, but it’s still inside your head. You can still hear it.”

Elizabeth looked like the sight of the Doctor scared her more than the Angel in her mind. Given the look the Doctor had on his face, Rory couldn’t say he blamed her.

“Yes,” she said. “It talks to me. It shows me things that it sees through the cracks in the universe.”

“Things like what, exactly?” the Doctor asked, coming around the console.

“It showed me you.” Elizabeth looked at the Doctor, her eyes hard. “It showed me things that you’ve done. Things that you will do. The entire universe on fire and you’re the man holding the match. It showed me people who have been by your side. Gwenyth. Solomon. Captain Brooke. Astrid. Donna. Rose. All of them gone now.”

*****

The Doctor was well aware of the limits of his temper and that some days those limits were shorter than others. For instance, days when he got sucked into helping with blindingly stupid military missions that lead to senseless deaths and put his friends in danger.

On those days his temper was quite short indeed.

The Doctor pushed past Rory and River, grabbed Cleric Elizabeth and the Angel riding inside of her, and jerked her up out of her chair.

“Well, if I’m to set fire to the entire universe,” he said, “maybe I’ll just start with you and your friends.”

The act incited a commotion, one that the Doctor paid scant attention to. There were indignant shouts from the Marines at the manhandling of their fellow cleric. The Doctor had the vague sense that he might have been tackled except that Amy, Coulson, and Clint intervened. He held Cleric Elizabeth so that her nose was barely an inch away from his, peering into her panicked eyes.

He thought he could see something lurking down in them, like flecks of stone. The Angel. He was sure it wasn’t just his imagination. The Doctor was distracted, though, when something belted him hard in the head, knocking him to the floor.

The Doctor winced, blinking up at River in pained surprise. She was standing over him with a fairly murderous look on her face, her hand still balled into fists.

“Back. Off,” she said.

 _I’m too old for this._ Or if not too old, then certainly not in the mood.

“Agent Song, I will ask you if I need your input,” the Doctor said, climbing back to his feet.

River had planted herself between the Doctor and Cleric Elizabeth who, the Doctor could see, was being steered back into the chair by Rory. 

“I’ll input your head to your ass if you do anything like that again.”

“Ah, I think you _both_ need to calm down,” Rory said. “Amy. . .?”

“Right. Come on.” Amy grabbed the Doctor’s arm, helping him the rest of the way up and pulling him back to the console. “We still need to find a way out of here.”

*****

Coulson breathed an imperceptible sigh of relief as the tension in the room diffused. The Marines’ hackles were lowering slowly—Coulson saw Clint and Cleric Liam giving each other the hairy eyeball—but they both took a step back. Octavian went to check on Elizabeth and confer with Rory. Coulson caught River’s eye and shook his head slightly.

 _Don’t tip your hand so much, kid._ Coulson got that River was protective of her foster mother, but they didn’t want the others wondering why the Doctor’s actions had made her snap.

“We didn’t find any other entrances or exits from this room,” Coulson said to Clerics Liam and Giles, mostly to get their minds back on task. “Nothing big enough for one of those Angels to get through, anyway. How’s the barricade coming?”

The two clerics turned back to the task of securing the door of the maintenance office. It was a substantial barrier to begin with and it did lock from the inside. Liam and Giles were fixing black boxes to the door on either side of the circular hatch handle.

“We’re mag-locking it,” the cleric said. “One of these locks alone can stand up to three thousand pounds of force. Four is probably overkill, but we didn’t want to take any chances. Nothing’s going to get through.”

As if the Angels had been listening, the circular handle suddenly rotated a few degrees to the right with a loud clang. 

“You had to say it, didn’t you?” Clint said.

*****

“Doctor, not to panic or rush you or anything like that, but they’re here and they’re trying to get in,” Amy said, watching the Doctor frantically push buttons on the control console. “What are you even doing, anyway?”

“Finding us a way out,” the Doctor replied.

“How? They said there was only one door.”

“Oh, Amy.” The Doctor smiled. “There’s always a way out. This is a maintenance office. On a starliner, maintenance includes life support. That means that it will have direct access to. . .ah ha.”

There was a loud thump and the far wall began to move.

“What’s that?” Amy asked.

“Think about it. Life support. What’s the most basic thing people need to travel in space?”

Amy’s eyes widened as the wall slid back.

“That’s a forest,” she said. _Brilliant, Pond. Way to state the obvious._

“Oxygen factory.” The Doctor smiled smugly at the forest that stretched off into the darkness in what must be an absolutely enormous chamber. Amy saw him glance sharply over his shoulder as there was another clang from the door. “Everyone, prepare to move out,” the Doctor said, voice raised. “We’re going to try to lose them in the woods.”


	4. Chapter 4

There was a path of sorts through the woods, likely left by the _Byzantium’s_ technicians, River thought. The forest would have been vital to the ship’s systems. It would have required monitoring and upkeep just as an engine would. 

The forest was illuminated by thin bands of fiber optics running through the trees. It was enough for them to see their way, and hopefully to keep the Angels from creeping up on them unseen. 

“Just when I think I’ve seen the weirdest thing I’m ever going to see,” River heard Clint mutter.

“We’ll cut through the forest. That should take us closer to the central control stations,” the Doctor said, leading the way into the trees.

“And then?” Octavian asked.

“It’s a plan in progress, Bishop. Just mind your cleric, if you please.”

*****

Elizabeth could feel the Angel writhing inside her mind. Its stone fingers scraped against the inside of her skull and hatred rolled off of it like flares from an unstable star. It had let Elizabeth see the broken bodies of her comrades. She could feel its delight at the sight.

Through her link with the Angel, Elizabeth got the sense that this was not the usual way of things with this species. Angels were known to feed off of potential energy, displacing a living person in time and consuming the years they would have had. This Angel was different. It enjoyed killing and it had incited its starving fellows into a frenzy. Elizabeth could feel the resentment that had built up in the Angel, so many years alone, away from its own kind, locked away as a curiosity.

It wanted them all dead.

Except, Elizabeth knew, for the Doctor. Elizabeth’s eyes found the man up ahead as Father Octavian and Cleric Giles propelled her along through the forest. The Angels had special plans for that one. A world of Time energy awaited the Angels if they could take him.

They just had to break through the doors.

*****

They were far enough into the woods to have lost sight of all bulkheads when Cleric Elizabeth collapsed, forcing the group to stop. Honestly, the Doctor was amazed that it had taken this long.

“What’s wrong with her?” Octavian asked.

“She has an Angel in her mind, Bishop. It’s bound to have a deteriorating effect,” the Doctor said, scanning the girl with the sonic. The effects were not as deteriorating as he would have imagined at this juncture, though. That was something. 

Cleric Elizabeth looked largely insensible. She was curled up on the loamy ground, and lying halfway across River’s lap. The agent was rubbing the cleric’s arm in some small attempt at comfort. Cleric Elizabeth’s vitals were far from stellar according to the medical reader, but she was holding on. 

Maybe he’d be able to get this one out alive yet. Somehow. It would hinge on getting the Angel out of her brain.

But for the moment, the link between the cleric and the Angel had its uses.

Elizabeth tried to flinch away from him as the Doctor reached a hand out to her. River was keeping one close and suspicious eye on him. She didn’t interfere, but her look said that she would the second he made a move she didn’t like.

“There, now. It’s all right,” the Doctor said for both their benefits. He rested his hand against the side of Elizabeth’s head. “I just need to take a quick look around.”

“What are you doing?” River asked. 

“Establishing a brief telepathic link. Shush,” the Doctor replied, closing his eyes in concentration.

“What, are you Vulcan now?” Clint asked.

_“Shhhhhhhhh!”_

The Doctor quickly and lightly sorted through the jumble inside the frightened young woman’s mind until he found the information he wanted. He broke contact with a shudder.

“They still haven’t made it through the door,” he said. “They’re feeding off of radiation from the ship, but they’re still weak. For Weeping Angels, at any rate. They’re making up for centuries of starvation. That’s good. It gives us some time.”

“Time for what?” Father Octavian asked.

The Doctor stood up, brushing the dirt off of his trousers.

“Bishop, step aside with me for a moment. You too, Agent Coulson.”

*****

“What’s the significance of a Level One Command Center?” Coulson asked.

The Doctor had pulled him and Father Octavian a little ways away from the others for an impromptu strategy meeting. Judging by Octavian’s expression, the significance was lost on the Marine as well.

“Among other things, a Level One Command Center will have a transport platform. Our only chance of survival is to get off of this ship and back to the TARDIS,” the Doctor said. He was already using the sonic to scan their surroundings. Looking for what? Coulson had no idea. “If we’re very, very lucky it’ll still be working. If we’re less lucky, I can get it working. Ah ha.”

The Doctor put his sonic screwdriver away and nodded at a path through the trees. “I’m reading a strong power signature from that direction.”

“We’ll be ready to move in just a moment,” Octavian said, looking back to assess his marines. 

“Ah. Yes. Here’s the part you’re not going to like,” the Doctor said. “Cleric Elizabeth has to stay here.”

“What?” Coulson asked.

The Doctor looked apologetic, but not to the point that he was going to be moved on this subject.

“She’s connected to the Angel. She can glimpse what it’s doing, which means that it can use her to see what we’re doing.”

“I’ve lost seventeen good clerics on this mission, Samaritan,” Octavian said. “Are you really suggesting that I abandon another one?”

“Of course not, not permanently,” the Doctor replied. “Leave her here with Liam or Giles or both of them. Once we find a transport platform, we’ll bring them to us and then we’ll all get out of here.”

_River is going to go ballistic,_ Coulson couldn’t help but think.

“We’ll all stay,” Octavian said. “Cleric Liam, Cleric Giles, and myself. We’ll not abandon one of our own and this way we can serve as a rear guard. I hope, Doctor, that we can trust you not to leave us behind.”

“I’m not in the habit of abandoning people, Bishop,” the Doctor said. “I’m no more eager to lose anyone else today than you are. Come along, Coulson. Let’s round up the rest of the troops. We have scouting to do.”

*****

“I can’t believe we left River back there,” Clint grumbled as they made their way through the forest.

He didn’t grumble it very loudly, just loudly enough that Coulson could hear him.

“Did you really want to try to make her come with us?” Coulson asked. “That’s--” 

Coulson glanced up ahead at the Doctor and Amy, but they were preoccupied, trying to follow the sensor on the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. Coulson lowered his voice even further. 

“That’s her mother for all intents and purposes back there,” he said. “Besides, Rory stayed too. They’ll look out for each other.”

Clint grunted. He reserved the right to not like this situation one fucking bit. He hadn’t even really been able to argue the point with River when she’d volunteered to stay back with the Marines to “help guard the rear.” Even if they’d had time for a debate, they had to be too careful about what they said in front of current company.

Rory, as the closest thing they had to medical personnel, had stayed as well to help Elizabeth inasmuch as he could. Clint would have stayed, too, but that would have left the scouting party with only one combat-trained member. And yes, the Doctor and Amy knew how to handle themselves, but that was still a lot to put on Coulson alone.

“Hey, Doc? How much further?” Clint asked.

The Doctor glanced back at him. “A few hundred yards, I think,” he said. 

“He thinks. Great.” Clint ignored Coulson’s sympathetic smile as he raised his walkie talkie. “River? Is everything okay back there?”

There was a brief crackle of static before she answered. _“Situation’s unchanged. But don’t let the Doctor stop to sightsee.”_

“I heard that,” the Doctor called.

Clint clipped the walkie talkie back onto his belt. This was turning into the longest walk in the woods ever.

*****

River signed off and scanned the trees again for any sign of stone angels. The forest seemed peaceful for the moment, but if the Weeping Angels got through the door before they could get to safety, River wanted to be sure she spotted them first. Clerics Liam and Giles were holding similar positions, guns at the ready.

“Hey,” Rory said quietly, stepping up beside her. “She’s okay,” he added before River could ask. “I mean, she’s no better, but she doesn’t seem to be any worse, either.”

River looked back at Elizabeth. She was still curled up on the ground. Octavian was sitting with her, head bent, talking too quietly for River to make out what he was saying.

“He never should have brought them in here,” Rory muttered. “Even if there was only one Angel, he had to know it was too dangerous.”

“He was following orders. That’s how jobs like this work,” River said. “I would have thought you’d understand that, Centurion.”

The look that Rory gave her was exceedingly dry.

“I can understand something and still think it’s a bad idea,” he said.

River smiled and shook her head as she turned to scan the trees again. She appreciated Rory’s brand of practicality.

“Was there ever a time when you--” River started to ask, but she was cut off by a choked cry.

She spun back around in time to see Elizabeth back on her feet and Octavian dangling in midair, held up by one of Elizabeth’s small hands around his throat. There was a dull crack, his head snapped sideways, and he fell to the ground in a limp heap.

When Elizabeth looked up from her commanding officer’s body, a small smile was playing around her lip. Her eyes were flat, blank grey stone.

“The others will be here soon,” the Angel said, “but I think we have time for a bit of fun, first.”

*****

They’d found the “jackpot” according to the Doctor, a large command center near the heart of the ship. Now they just had to get into it.

The Doctor was scanning the access panel with his sonic screwdriver, the Time Lord equivalent of picking a lock, when the sound of gunfire erupted in the distance. A fraction of a second later, Rory’s voice, panicked and disjointed by static, came over the walkie talkie.

Amy’s head whipped around, but she barely had a chance to register, _“. . .angel. . .dead. . .River. . .HELP!”_ before Clint, who had the walkie talkie, took off running back the way they had come.

“Hey!” Amy shouted after him in unison with the Doctor’s “No, no, no!” and Coulson’s, “Dammit, Clint, wait!” But Clint was already out of sight.

*****

Rory was being stalked.

He was crab-crawling backwards across the forest floor, desperately hoping to stumble across a deadly weapon of some sort. Angel-Elizabeth was strolling along in his wake, stone eyes fixed on him.

She—it—was enjoying this. Rory knew she could kill him in a spit second, just like she had killed Octavian. Just like she had killed Cleric Liam and Cleric Giles when they’d drawn their weapons on her. In a detached, vaguely fascinated way, Rory noted that her connection to the Angel must be imparting some its super-speed to Elizabeth. In a much less detached way, he was frantically trying to think of a way to avoid being added to the pile of broken bodies the Angel had already amassed.  


River was lying a few yards away. She had jumped in front of Rory when Angel-Elizabeth had turned on him. Rory knew that River was a formidable fighter. He had seen her skills up close. She’d even managed to keep Angel-Elizabeth distracted for a few seconds. River had taken a blow and gone down hard, but she’d bought Rory enough time to grab the communicator.  


He could only hope that the _HELP_ part of his message at least had gotten through.  


“Elizabeth, you don’t want to do this,” Rory said.  


The Angel cocked a sardonic eyebrow over one of her unnerving flat, grey eyes. “Appealing to the human, are you?” she asked. “Well, she is in here, but she really has very little choice in the matter, you know.”  


Rory could hear someone running through the trees and was torn between being relieved that help was coming and shouting to warn them off. Angel-Elizabeth raised her head, smiling at the sound. But before she could turn to dispatch her new opponent there was a popping sound and her entire body jerked, her expression changing to one of surprise. She tottered for a moment, then fell, landing across Rory’s legs.  


Rory saw Clint sprint out of the trees, going straight for River. Rory let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding when he saw the agent twitch and try to push herself up off of the ground.  


“Should have done that in the first fucking place,” Clint said, tucking a pistol back into his belt and sparing a glance at Elizabeth as he knelt down by River. “Hey, not so fast. What hurts?”  


Coulson and Amy had come out of the trees as well. Coulson veered over to the bodies of the Marines while Amy ran for Rory. Rory eased his legs out from under Elizabeth, seeing for the first time the dart in her back.  


“Archer-boy’s packing a tranquilizer gun, it turns out,” Amy said, helping him to his feet. “Should keep her quiet until we can get off the ship. The Doctor’s found what he was looking for.”

*****

“She nailed you pretty good.”

River winced as Clint carefully probed at her cheekbone. She had no memory of the blow landing, but Elizabeth’s fist had connected with her face with enough force to turn her lights out for a few minutes. The bruise hadn’t started to form yet, but it felt like it was going to be more black than blue.

“Well, I don’t think it’s broken,” Clint said.

“I’m no more cracked than usual?” River asked.

Clint snorted, his lips twitching. “That’s one way of putting it.”

The headache, when it was allowed to finally hit, was going to be blinding, too, River thought. She could tell by the way it was already throbbing in time to the muffled bangs and thuds coming from the transport platform. The Doctor had found his Level One Command Center, but luck was only being so kind to them. It was currently inoperative. The Doctor was working on it now with some assistance from Coulson. Rory and Amy were keeping watch on Elizabeth, who was still safely drugged and handcuffed.

“I’ll give her this; she knows how to throw down,” Clint said under his breath.

River attempted to smile without overexerting her face. “Who do you think taught me?”

She glanced up as Rory came over to join them. “So. Thanks for not letting me get my head taken off back there,” he said.

“Don’t mention it.”

“Brought something to show my appreciation,” Rory added, holding up a small blue hypodermic stick.

River breathed a long sigh of relief when the painkiller immediately made the pounding in her head drop by a few decibels. 

It was good timing. A second later alarms started blaring in the Command Center.

*****

Amy clamped her hands over her ears as the sirens sounded and red lights begin flashing. She noticed that Elizabeth didn’t so much as twitch. Whatever was in SHIELD tranquilizers, it must be potent stuff.  


“Did you trip something?” she asked loudly as the Doctor scrambled out from under the transport platform.  


“It wasn’t me!” The Doctor waved his sonic screwdriver at the control console and, blessedly, the alarm cut off, though the flashing red lights remained. “It’s a proximity alarm.”  


“Proximity? Proximity of what? This ship is nose down in the ground,” Coulson asked.  


“The proximity alarm I set up while you lot were playing fisticuffs in the woods,” the Doctor replied. He was fiddling with dials now, trying to bring up the view screen on the far wall by the look of it. After a few jumpy, staticy seconds the picture cleared and sharpened giving them a view of the forest outside. “I set it up in case of. . .that.”  


“Oh, my God,” Amy said.  


There were Angels in the trees. A swarm. A flock. A host? What did you call a big bunch of angels, anyway? Amy blinked and the Angels had moved, advancing through the forest, no doubt on their trail.  


“Can we get out of here, yet?” Clint asked.  


“The transport platform’s nearly drained. It needs a power boost.” The Doctor gave the platform a short, swift, frustrated kick. “That’ll take time and we officially don’t have much left.”  


“It also doesn’t solve our other problem,” Rory said.  


When everyone turned to look at him he nodded to Elizabeth. “What do we do about her?”  


That was her Rory. Mind on his patient.  


The Doctor was frowning. Amy was pretty sure she knew what was going on in that twisty, turny brain of his. Elizabeth’s mind, and at this point her body, were firmly in the grip of the Angel. She had killed three Marines, including her commanding officer. She had done a number on River. Assuming they could find a way off of this ship, the smart thing might well be to leave her behind.  


Amy knew her Doctor well enough to know he wouldn’t go down that road without a fight.  


The Doctor clapped his hands together.  


“All right. We have two distinct issues at hand. The first is that we need to get off of this ship before the wave of impending stone death out there comes knocking on our door. We’re mildly handicapped by the fact that the transport is damaged and will only be good for one burst that will take two people at most. I’ve got that one sorted, though. It’s easy.”  


“It is?” Clint asked at the same time Coulson said, “You do?”  


The Doctor ignored them and carried on.  


“The second is that our young cleric friend has an Angel happily encamped inside her head and controlling her, and I doubt it’s going to move out of its own free will. I’m also fairly certain that it’s going to kill her if it’s there much longer. So, we’re going to have to break the connection, which will likely take great force. This leads us back to our first issue, getting off the ship.”  


“I’d be happier if it led us to a plan,” Coulson said.  


“I have a plan, Agent Coulson. Keep up.”  


Amy tried and failed to smother a smile. This was it. The Doctor knew how to fix this.  


“We have enough power to transport two people off of this ship. River and Amy, the two of you will go. I’ll put you down on the beach. You need to get to the TARDIS and River, you’ll pilot it back to this room to get the rest of us. Can you do that?”  


“Easily,” she frowned. “But what are you going to do to help Elizabeth?”  


“That’s what we’re going to be working on while you’re getting our lifeboat. Phase Two.” The Doctor smiled, gleeful and dangerous. “We’re going to find a way to blow this ship and all of the Angels to Kingdom Come.”

*****

After so many hours underground and in the corridors of the crashed ship, the cold wind blowing off the alien ocean made River feel like all of her senses had suddenly doubled. She took a deep breath and heard Amy, who had appeared beside her, do the same.

“Okay,” Amy said. “TARDIS. Where is it?”

The Doctor had warned them that he wouldn’t be able to be terribly precise about where they landed. The controls were too battered.

It took a fraction of a second for River’s inner compass to calibrate. She turned and squinted up the length of the beach. 

“That way,” she told Amy. “Come on. We need to run for it.”

*****

Back in the command center, the Doctor, Rory, Clint, and Coulson had torn up half of the floor.

“Just as I suspected,” the Doctor said. 

He was hanging upside down in an access shaft, scanning with his sonic screwdriver. He double-checked the readings and then twisted so that he could look up at Rory and Coulson, who were holding him by his feet.

“There’s a shaft here that goes straight down to the power core. If we set off an explosion at the core, it’ll ignite a chain reaction and the ship will go up in a nuclear fireball taking the Angels with it. Pull me up. OW! _Gently!”_

“A nuclear fireball will definitely kill those things?” Rory asked as he and Coulson pulled the Doctor back up onto the deck.

“Kill. Or reduce to microscopic rubble, something I imagine it would take them thousands of years to recover from. Either way, they’ll cease to be our problem.”

The Doctor clambered to his feet, checking the readings on his sonic screwdriver one more time. “It’s a good distance, a little over one hundred meters. And the shaft is narrow.” The Doctor looked over at Clint. “You’re sure you can make this shot?” he asked. 

Clint had the contents of his quiver laid neatly out in front of him. Bow, arrowheads, odd little technological bobbilty bits.

“I’m sure,” Clint said.

“One hundred meters. Narrow shaft. Did I mention the part where you’ll be hanging upside down?”

Clint looked up from his work. He was grinning.

“Doc, I used to shoot an apple out of the ringmaster’s hand from a distance of fifty feet, sighting off of a mirror while I was hanging off of a trapeze bar by my knees. And I made that shot every show night. I’ve got this. Here.” He handed the Doctor a dull black arrowhead. “That’s the biggest explosives payload I’m packing. Will it be enough?”

The Doctor took the arrowhead, giving it a quick scan. “Good Lord. Do you carry this stuff around on your back all the time?”

“It’s stable.”

Since Clint had apparently worked for SHIELD for some time without blowing himself to bits, ears aside, the Doctor was willing to take his word on that. “I’ll probably beef it up a bit just to be on the safe side. Not to be overly dramatic, but we’re only going to get one shot at this.”

*****

Amy had a little trouble keeping up with River. _Intensive sprinting_ must be a course at SHIELD or something. Halfway to the TARDIS, River finally reached back, grabbed Amy’s hand, and towed her the rest of the way down the rocky beach.

They burst through the door of the TARDIS and River took the steps up to the control console two at a time, for all the world just like the Doctor. She had already pulled around a view screen and was keying in coordinates when Amy came off the stairs and leaned heavily on the console, trying to catch her breath.

The console started to light up, the instruments pulsing as the TARDIS took off.

“Someday,” Amy said, “I really want you to tell me how you know how to do this.”

River looked over at her with a little grin.

“Someday. It’s a promise,” she said.

*****

A steady, terrible rhythm was beating its way through the Command Center. The Angels were all around them, pounding on the walls.

Rory wondered if Elizabeth, or whatever was left of her, could hear them. She was still and silent, but her eyes were half open and all Rory could see was stone. The skin around her eyes was starting to go dull and grey as well, and when Rory touched it, it was cold and hard.

“Don’t worry,” Rory said, looking over to where the Doctor, Coulson, and Clint were working. “We’ll have you sorted out soon. You’ll be fine.”

*****

The pounding was distracting. Still, Clint had worked under worse conditions.

He held himself still as Coulson and the Doctor lowered him into position. They had rigged a harness out of a set of seat restraints and cabling from Clint’s quiver. It provided a bit more stability than being held by the legs.

“Okay, that’s good,” Clint called up to them. His downward descent halted. He had a good, albeit inverted, line of sight down the shaft to the reactor. He could see the faint light far down at the bottom. The Doctor hadn’t been kidding. The shaft was narrow, barely two feet square. Not much room for course error.

For someone else, that might be a problem.

Clint notched his arrow. It was now sporting an additional explosives pack below the first payload, but the change to the weight and balance was nothing that he couldn’t compensate for. 

“Ready?” he called up to the others.

He was about to shoot a bomb at a nuclear reactor. Clint wanted to be sure that the exits were clear before he let fly.

“The TARDIS is on its way,” the Doctor said. “We’re ready when you are.”

Clint nodded, raising his bow and drawing back the arrow, taking careful aim down the shaft. He exhaled, waited for the space between heartbeats, and fired. The arrow disappeared down the dark shaft and the white light at the end momentarily winked out.

“Okay, go!” Clint said, and the shaft zipped past him as the Doctor and Coulson hauled him back to the deck. Before he had even extricated himself from the harness, the sound of Angels beating on the walls had been drowned out by the wheezing, groaning sound of the TARDIS.

Rory was holding Elizabeth, ready to go. The Doctor and Coulson held the doors and waved him though before getting on themselves. Clint was the last. He paused in the open doorway of the TARDIS just long enough to hit the detonation control on his bow and dove inside as he started to feel the deck shudder under his feet.

*****

Amy ran down the stairs to meet the others as they came piling through the door of the TARDIS. River remained at the controls. She spared a fraction of her attention to do a quick head-count: Rory and Elizabeth. The Doctor. Coulson. Clint.

All aboard. Time to get the hell out of here. 

The Doctor left the others below and came up the stairs to join River at the console. He adjusted the view screen slightly, watching with an unreadable face as the fiery explosion obscured the crashed ship, the temple, and the peninsula they’d both been on.

“Well. That takes care of that,” the Doctor said.

“I’ve put us in orbit,” River offered. “I wasn’t sure where we were going from here.” She set the stabilizers and turned to face the Doctor. “Did it work?” she asked. “The Angel is destroyed. Is Elizabeth all right?”

“Let’s go see,” the Doctor said.

River held her breath while the Doctor took a poke around Elizabeth’s brain. A part of her winced inwardly at the intrusion, but they had to know.

Before the Doctor had even finished, though, Elizabeth’s eyes opened. They didn’t open for more than a few seconds, but it was enough for all of them to see that they were glassy, confused, blue, and very human. The stone was gone.

The Doctor sighed, removing his hand. “It’s gone. This house is clean, as they say. No more Angel.”

River felt Clint put an arm around her shoulders and give her a squeeze. It had worked.

“She’s still not in a very good way, though,” Rory said. “She should be in hospital.”

“Quite,” the Doctor said. “The Church maintains a medical base on the Moon of Paragon in the Cerulean System. It’s close by. Well, relatively. Well, not at all, but we can still have her there in a tick.” 

The Doctor rubbed one tired hand over his face and looked back over his shoulder at Clint and River. “Agent Song? Would you care to drive?” he asked.

“Of course, Doctor,” River said.

She laced her fingers through Clint’s and, pulling him with her, went back to the controls.

*****

_April 2010_  
 _Wales. Again._

The stone buildings of the little Welsh village looked oddly foreign to Coulson as they stepped out of the TARDIS. After what they’d just gone through, the village just seemed so. . .Earthly. This must be what interplanetary culture shock felt like.

They had landed on a quiet street corner. Cool grey mist had replaced the downpour they’d departed in and windows in the surrounding buildings were glowing with warm yellow light. 

“At least the rain’s stopped,” Amy said. 

“When the hell are we?” Clint asked tiredly.

Coulson saw River calculating. “Eight hours from when we left,” she said. 

“Dinner time.” Rory took a deep breath. “God, that smells good. Does anyone else smell that?”

Coulson did, in fact, smell it. His stomach grumbled in response.

The Doctor inhaled deeply, stretching his arms behind him. “Fish and chips,” he said. “Shepherd’s pie. Burgers. There’s an exceptional pub around here somewhere.”

“It’s up the street.” Coulson had his bearings now. “We passed by on our way out this morning.” He glanced at Clint and River, then turned to the Doctor, Amy, and Rory. “Why don’t you guys stay for dinner? SHIELD’s buying.”

The Time Lord and his companions exchanged looks.

“Works for me,” Amy said. “I’m starving.”

Leaving the TARDIS on the corner, the six of them headed down the street to the pub.


	5. Chapter 5

**Coda**

_The Year 5138_  
 _The Moon of Paragon_

It was over a week before Elizabeth truly came to believe that she was safe again.

For her first few days in the base hospital she was largely insensible, and then for a few days more she was distrustful of her own senses. After the waking nightmares the Weeping Angel had subjected her to, the control it had exercised over her, she was slow to believe that her soul was her own again. It didn’t help that her nights were dogged by dreams of stone and fire and images of a universe torn to pieces.

There were a lot of questions she was called upon to answer by the end of that first week. Elizabeth expected nothing less. She was the sole survivor of Father Octavian’s unit. When they told her this, Elizabeth had all but been swallowed up by the warring sensations of grief and the feel of bone snapping under her hands. Her commanding officer, a man who had been like a second father to her, was gone. Her friends and comrades where gone. People wanted to know why, but Elizabeth didn’t know what to tell them.

Of course, she told them everything she could. A lot of what had happened on Alfava Metraxis was hazy or completely blank, but Elizabeth told them everything she could remember. It sometimes felt like the debriefings would never end. 

Every person the Church sent to ask more questions was of a higher rank than the last. That, Elizabeth felt, didn’t bode particularly well for her, but she couldn’t make herself care overly much. After all that had happened, the possibility of a lifetime alone in a safe dark cell sounded almost appealing.

By the time the doctors informed her that a Bishop Kovarian from the Inquisitorial Division wanted to interview her, Elizabeth had resigned herself to, at best, a rushed discharge from the service. She changed into her uniform in her small hospital room, smoothed and pinned her hair back neatly, and waited to be collected.

When her escort arrived, it was a single cleric, a young man not much older than her. He looked quite imposing, very tall and solidly built, but his pleasant face and kind smile belayed any feelings of intimidation. 

“Cleric Elizabeth Stuart?” he asked. He held out his hand. “Hello. I’m Cleric Robert MacDonald, assistant to Bishop Kovarian. We’re ready for you down in the conference room.”

To Elizabeth’s surprise, Bishop Kovarian greeted her warmly.

“Cleric Elizabeth,” she said, clasping her hand. “I’m so very sorry for your losses.”

Kovarian waved Elizabeth into a seat at the table. A tea tray had been provided, and the Bishop passed Elizabeth a cup while Cleric Robert set up his data pad to record the meeting.

“Now,” Bishop Kovarian said, “I’ve already reviewed the notes from your previous debriefings. I’d like to skip over those basic details if it’s all the same to you.”

“That’s fine,” Elizabeth said, relieved. She could go a very long time without regurgitating the base facts of the mission.

“I’m interested in these people you encountered. The Samaritans.” Bishop Kovarian picked up a paper from the open file beside her. “I take it you have been informed that this has been investigated. No Samaritans were ever dispatched to assist Octavian with his mission.”

“Yes, ma’am, I’ve been informed,” Elizabeth said. “And as I’ve told the others, I don’t know why they were there. They arrived unexpectedly and said they could help us. Their leader, the Doctor, took us all into the temple and. . .”

“And only you came out.” Bishop Kovarian sounded almost gentle.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I know this is difficult,” Bishop Kovarian said, “and that there is a great deal that you do not remember. In addition to your mental violations, you were subjected to prophetic images. That is not something that an untrained mind has an easy time with. I must say, though, I’m impressed with your recall.”

Bishop Kovarian folded her hands on the table, and Elizabeth felt that they had arrived at the true reason for this interview.

“I want you to tell me more about these prophecies. Particularly the one involving the Doctor.” Bishop Kovarian tilted her head as Elizabeth hesitated. “Can you do that? Do you remember how it goes?”

Elizabeth glanced at Cleric Robert who gave her a brief, encouraging nod. She sat up straighter.

 _“On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the eleventh,”_ she recited, _“when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked. A question that must never, ever be answered. . .”_


End file.
